Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

A group of foreigners in the northeastern town of Shishan finds the status quo upset when Helen Frances, a young woman with a middle class upbringing but a fatal flaw, arrives and falls in love with the Hon Henry Manners. The most astonishing range of characters awaits you in this novel; the wicked brothel-keeper Madam Liu and her sadistic son Ren Ren, the pragmatic, rational missionary Dr Airton, the American zealot Septimus Harding, the equivocal Mandarin. Not to mention the wonderfully complicated anti-hero Henry Manners, the prostitutes Fan Yimei and Shen Ping, the bandit Iron Man Wang, the Mongolian shaman. And the ingenue, Helen Frances herself, whose innocence covers an unorthodox curiosity.

Author Biography

The son of a Hong Kong Taipan, Adam Williams was born and raised in Asia, though educated in the United Kingdom. His family has been in China since the 1880s and he has fulfilled his destiny by joining Jardine Matheson and rising to head its operations in China as well as those of Jardine Fleming. He has undertaken an expedition by camel into the heart of the Taklamaken Desert to seek the lost cities of the Silk Road, and having survived this, competed in the 'Rhino Charge'. He is also an OBE.